Word
accentual
Phoneticsac·cen·tu·al
Definition
adj. relating to the way you stress or emphasize certain syllables in a word. It describes how the sound of a word is organized into strong and weak parts.
adj. relating to the placement of stress or emphasis on specific syllables within a word. Often used in linguistic contexts to describe the rhythmic or prosodic structure of a language.
Examples
“The poet used an accentual rhythm to make the poem feel more powerful.”
“In some languages, the meaning of a word can change depending on which syllable is accentual.”
“The study of accentual patterns in Old English reveals how the language's stress system influenced the eventual loss of its complex inflectional endings.”
Examples
simple
“The poet used an accentual rhythm to make the poem feel more powerful.”
contextual
“In some languages, the meaning of a word can change depending on which syllable is accentual.”
complex
“The study of accentual patterns in Old English reveals how the language's stress system influenced the eventual loss of its complex inflectional endings.”
Etymology
From accent + -ual.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Word family
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/accentual